We live in the information age!
The every day person has more information accessible to them than at any other time in history! We can go out on this thing called the internet and research all kinds of things, find all kinds of information.
Yet truth it seems, is harder than ever to find.
Reason is out in full force, ideas are shared in ways that are unprecedented, opinion and thought can be shared by all.
But truth is something so murky it is almost lost.
Think about it! You could, with only a few word searches, find dozens of examples of conflicting viewpoints that claim to be true in dozens of debates. All of them will have some type of proof or study to back them up. And unless you are an expert in pretty much everything and have had the ability to study pretty much everything you could easily be persuaded by either side if you have an open mind.
Hence the satirical joke, “Well it’s on the internet, therefore it MUST be true!”
A joke that reflects just how much we have found this information highway to be one of the most convoluted sources of information in history.
We know everything, and we know nothing. We have proof for anything we’d like, and we have no proof at all.
We are the generation where human reason reigns supreme, and its dictatorship is quickly steering us to a crisis of understanding that leads to a depressing lack of understanding anything at all.
In all of this confusion and reason and information, where is one to look if one wants to know truth? Know the answers to the biggest most important questions?
Why are we here?
What is our purpose?
Human Reason and the Information Age gives only conflicting answers at best. At worst we degenerate into a consciousness of, well, nothing! No reason or purpose for being. Nothing but meaninglessness.
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Ecclesiastes 1:2
So says Solomon. It’s perhaps a familiar refrain in this day and age.
Many I’ve spoken to in the past have found Ecclesiastes to be a depressing book, and not one they wish to spend much time in. I’ve always disagreed. Oh I know if you read it without an understanding of it’s purpose it might just drive you into a deep depression, but personally it’s one of my favorite books in the Bible!
A little backstory may be in order. In scripture Solomon is said to be the wisest man to ever have lived. This dude is the Reason King! He sees and understands how the world works. And He makes some of the stupidest decisions you could imagine in his personal life.
I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Ecclesiastes 1:14
He can really make this claim about seeing all! He is, for his time, the richest, the wisest, the most powerful King ever. Under his reign silver is as valuable as rocks, because his nation is so abundant. Kings and Queens and Rulers from all over the world come to him to listen to his wisdom. He is top dog.
And because he is top dog, he has the capacity to do whatever he wants, so in his life he seeks to case after that wind, he tries to be happy, he looks and searches and tries everything he can to find happiness and peace. What does he find with all his knowledge? What joy does it bring him?
For with much wisdom come much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes 1:18
Familiar refrain isn’t it? Us who live in this information age and find it, well, depressing.
Ok, so dude becomes the wealthiest, wisest man on earth, and indulges in all the pleasures it has to offer. And I mean he indulges! He literally has a few thousand wives and concubines! Talk about a fantasy life! Playboy mansion has nothing on this guy, he has his own personal playboy village! And he even finds love, as odd as that seems to me with his playboy village, Solomon also writes The Song of Songs, a sensual and beautiful love poem dedicated to his young bride, whom he very much loves. (Yes I said it was sensual, and its in the Bible.) He falls hard for this chick, so a lack of knowing love isn’t the reason he’s depressed. (Though I’d personally find it depressing to be the chick, what number bride am I now?)
Oh and he is depressed. He despairs over all his wealth and pleasures. None of it has brought him meaning. None of it has brought him fulfillment.
He only finds one thing that is good, only one with all his wealth and pleasures in his life.
This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them- for this is their lot. Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil- this is a gift of God. They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart. Ecclesiastes 5:18-20
But wait! He’s already gone through and thoroughly said that work and food and drink and wealth are all meaningless and don’t bring joy! What is different here?
The focus, friend! It’s all about the focus.
God focus!
And here is the hope I find in his message. A hope for us, in a world of Human Reason and Human Wisdom.
When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth- people getting no sleep day or night- then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it. Ecclesiastes 8:16-17
We may live in the Information Age, and Human Reason and Wisdom may rule like never before, but that doesn’t mean that we have all the answers, even now. And that is a GOOD thing.
As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. Ecclesiastes 11:5
God is the ultimate mystery. And we will never ever understand Him, but we are meant to chase Him anyway. It’s our purpose, it’s our destiny, it’s our meaning.
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. Ecclesiastes 12:13
Don’t look to Human Reason for your purpose and for truth. At best you will journey in circles. We live in a world that wants to lift man up as the supreme being in charge of his own destiny, but he is not. Take a lesson from Solomon, all it will get you is endless meaningless. But God? Meaning, Joy, Life. It’s all wrapped up in Him! In His Mystery! His Beauty! Himself!
He is our meaning, He is our Truth!
~Joy Aletheia Stevens
Photo Credit: by Ministerio TIC Colombia (CC BY 2.0)
Photo Credit: by epSos .de (CC BY 2.0)
Photo Credit: by Sean and Lauren (CC BY 2.0)
Leave a Reply